January 10th, 2016
Service Award Redesign
After decades of providing a trophy in 5 year increments of total service for Microsoft employees. The Service Award Team decided to enhance the program to include options for a cash reward to employees, or the third option of donating the cash award and having Microsoft’s charitable donations program match the amount.

Our CEO, Emmett Thompson led the initiative as Lead PM. Over the course of 4 months the core team and supporting teams were able to successfully impact more than 100K employees worldwide.
• All three Service Award Options for US employees.
• Additional Cash Option for all employees across remaining 108 subsidiaries and regions worldwide.
• The project required elaborate coordination and a lot of soft skills across more than 20 internal and external teams.
• Once the project successfully launched it was fully transitioned to the Service Award Program and Support teams.
• To date, the Program receives great employee feedback about the added options including a deep appreciation in the US for the matched donation option.
• The Service Award Team is working to roll out the charitable donation option worldwide over the next year.